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Powder Suggestion for 6.5cm. Not H4350/Stabll 6.5

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SlowMiss6.5

Sergeant of the Hide
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Mar 4, 2024
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As some of you have seen, been really struggling with my tikka 6.5cm to get my ES of 40/45 down to the 20s. I was able to get my comp 6.5 rifle down to the high teens low 20s ES using H4350 and Lapua Brass and FL sizing

The tikka will shoot factory ELDX with an ES of 29 over 20+ shots so I know the rifle can do it. I’ve tried H4350 and Staball 6.5 with the same 40 ish ES over 10-15 shots

To keep it simple let’s assume it’s not a loading process issue (seeing as how I got the other 6.5 to low ES). Should I try some vihtavuori powder? Haven’t seen Reloader 16 locally. Temp stability is important to me as this is a hunting rifle
 
H4831SC should work, might be a tad slower than the H4350. RL16 will be faster, but I doubt it will beat H4350 in consistency. Honestly, my experience is that H4350 is about as good as it gets for consistency in that class, so maybe look to other parts of your process for improvements.
 
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I had best results while in a similar boat to you with N555, though it can be harder to find. Bonus is if you can find it, it seems to be the cheapest option a lot of places recently. Local store has reloder powder at about $75/lb while hodgdon and vihtavouri is $50-55/lb
 
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acourvil said:
H4831SC should work, might be a tad slower than the H4350. RL16 will be faster, but I doubt it will beat H4350 in consistency. Honestly, my experience is that H4350 is about as good as it gets for consistency in that class, so maybe look to other parts of your process for improvements.
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I went down a deep rabbit hole analyzing my process and when I went back to FL sizing, my comp 6.5 with H4350 went right down to teens/20s ES shooting two different days. So I had a neck tension issue

But no matter how careful I am or am not, the tikka is always in the 40 ish ES with my reloads so I have to guess it’s a combustion issue (I’m using Peterson brass but got only slightly worse ES with Hornady brass. I also tried the exact pieces of Lapua brass from my comp rifle and the ES was in the 40s while it was 15 in my comp 6.5 so I don’t think it’s the brass or my process)
 
netcat said:
I had best results while in a similar boat to you with N555, though it can be harder to find. Bonus is if you can find it, it seems to be the cheapest option a lot of places recently. Local store has reloder powder at about $75/lb while hodgdon and vihtavouri is $50-55/lb
Click to expand...

I believe I can find this locally so I will give it a try! Sure hope it improves me ES. How much did it help your ES?
 
netcat said:
I had best results while in a similar boat to you with N555, though it can be harder to find. Bonus is if you can find it, it seems to be the cheapest option a lot of places recently. Local store has reloder powder at about $75/lb while hodgdon and vihtavouri is $50-55/lb
Click to expand...

So locally they have N150 and N565. Reading on their website it sounds like the 150 may be a better fit?
 
netcat said:
I had best results while in a similar boat to you with N555, though it can be harder to find. Bonus is if you can find it, it seems to be the cheapest option a lot of places recently. Local store has reloder powder at about $75/lb while hodgdon and vihtavouri is $50-55/lb
Click to expand...
So it appears I deleted my tracking sheet for N555, at least when I was doing consistency testing over a 50 shot string, so my numbers may not be statistically sound. During load development I was getting around ~20-35 as my ES for 5 shot group with H4350, and ~10-25 for 5 shot groups with N555. Note N555 improved significantlyas you approach max case fill so the higher end of that was with lower charge weights while the lower end was with higher charge weights. H4350 for me was consistently around 25 at most charge weights. You should be able to get close to~95% fill without hitting pressure for a 140-143 projectile if thats the ELD-X you are using.


You mentioned using Lapua brass for your comp gun, are you also using Lapua brass in this case? I will say removing starline, federal, hornady brass produced the largest difference for me, followed by dropping 6.5 staball. Literally reduced my numbers well over half between the two with no technique difference.
 
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I have had excellent results with RL 16, just could not find any for a quite a while, once my supply dried up I switched over to VV 555.
 
SlowMiss6.5 said:
So locally they have N150 and N565. Reading on their website it sounds like the 150 may be a better fit?
Click to expand...
Someone check me if I am wrong, but I believe VV 5X0 (540, 550, etc) are not that tempature stable, while N555 was made to address that specifically. I was going to say 565 is almost certainly too slow, but looks like they list some load data for it and its not terribly slow. The 100 series powder may be the best bet for you, but I do not have any experience with it to comment on it.

More information on each one here: https://www.vihtavuori.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Vihtavuori-IP-brochure-2022_ENG.pdf their commerical powder is the same as industrial from what I have read (kept to the same burn rate)
 
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netcat said:
So it appears I deleted my tracking sheet for N555, at least when I was doing consistency testing over a 50 shot string, so my numbers may not be statistically sound. During load development I was getting around ~20-35 as my ES for 5 shot group with H4350, and ~10-25 for 5 shot groups with N555. Note N555 improved significantlyas you approach max case fill so the higher end of that was with lower charge weights while the lower end was with higher charge weights. H4350 for me was consistently around 25 at most charge weights. You should be able to get close to~95% fill without hitting pressure for a 140-143 projectile if thats the ELD-X you are using.


You mentioned using Lapua brass for your comp gun, are you also using Lapua brass in this case? I will say removing starline, federal, hornady brass produced the largest difference for me, followed by dropping 6.5 staball. Literally reduced my numbers well over half between the two with no technique difference.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info!

This 6.5 uses Peterson brass. But I got only a little higher ES with Hornady brass earlier this year. I tried the exact 10 pieces of Lapua brass that produced as ES of 15 in my 6.5comp rifle and tried it in the tikka and it was right back at 40-45 ES so then I tried stable 6.5 and same thing on ES but factory eldx ammo produces an ES in high 20s over 20+ shots so I know it’s possible

Unfortunately not N555 locally. Only N150 or N565
 
Have you tried sorting your primers by weight? There was a thread going around showing primer weight had a big influence on velocity. Heavier primer higher velocity. Assuming it's real, and many says it is, then an unsorted primer set could have high ES and maybe you got lucky and had similar primer weights in one test giving you low ES.
 
Bmghunter said:
Have you tried sorting your primers by weight? There was a thread going around showing primer weight had a big influence on velocity. Heavier primer higher velocity. Assuming it's real, and many says it is, then an unsorted primer set could have high ES and maybe you got lucky and had similar primer weights in one test giving you low ES.
Click to expand...

I haven’t not. Just picked 10 random rem 7.5s and 10 random fed 210M. The comp 6.5 that is getting low ES uses the Rem, tikka uses the 210M. I don’t think primer weight is my problem…

Most of the fed weighted 5.4 with a few 5.5. Majority of the rem weighted 3.5 with some 3.4
 
Would like to know how you are reloading? I find it hard that you can't get the SD with H4350 into the teens. Even my worst loads are below 20 sd
 
Bacarrat said:
Would like to know how you are reloading? I find it hard that you can't get the SD with H4350 into the teens. Even my worst loads are below 20 sd
Click to expand...

One rifle I can get in the teens with H4350, other rifle no mater what I do (even when using the same exact Lapua brass that produced teens ES in my 6.5 comp rifle) I get 40-45 ES in this tikka. This is over 300+ shots. Tikka shoot everything I reload or factory well but my reload ES is bad and I’m determined to fix it
 
SlowMiss6.5 said:
One rifle I can get in the teens with H4350, other rifle no mater what I do (even when using the same exact Lapua brass that produced teens ES in my 6.5 comp rifle) I get 40-45 ES in this tikka. This is over 300+ shots. Tikka shoot everything I reload or factory well but my reload ES is bad and I’m determined to fix it
Click to expand...

Maybe it has something to do with the chamber on your one rifle...
 
kthomas said:
Maybe it has something to do with the chamber on your one rifle...
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If factory eldx 6.5cm ammo didn’t produce an ES of high 20s over 21 shots, I’d chaulk it up to chamber. Some factory eldx 8 shots strings have low teens ES
 
SlowMiss6.5 said:
If factory eldx 6.5cm ammo didn’t produce an ES of high 20s over 21 shots, I’d chaulk it up to chamber. Some factory eldx 8 shots strings have low teens ES
Click to expand...

Unless your lot of H4350 is contaminated somehow, I can't imagine its the powder. H4350 is perfect for 6.5 Creedmoor. However, if you want to try different powders, VV N150 is a good one to try.
 
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kthomas said:
Unless your lot of H4350 is contaminated somehow, I can't imagine its the powder. H4350 is perfect for 6.5 Creedmoor. However, if you want to try different powders, VV N150 is a good one to try.
Click to expand...

It looks like on their website the N565 is better for the heavy bullets in the 6.5. I’m shooting the 147 ELDM. Would you still go for the N150 for the 147 bullet?
 
SlowMiss6.5 said:
It looks like on their website the N565 is better for the heavy bullets in the 6.5. I’m shooting the 147 ELDM. Would you still go for the N150 for the 147 bullet?
Click to expand...

One thing to be aware of with VV's N5XX series is that it's a double based powder that burns much hotter than other powders. Good speed and consistency, terrible barrel life (allegedly).

You would have to do some research on what the best VV powder is for the 147's. I haven't shot reloaded anything above 140 grains for my 6.5 Creedmoors.
 
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kthomas said:
One thing to be aware of with VV's N5XX series is that it's a double based powder that burns much hotter than other powders. Good speed and consistency, terrible barrel life (allegedly).

You would have to do some research on what the best VV powder is for the 147's. I haven't shot reloaded anything above 140 grains for my 6.5 Creedmoors.
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Thanks for the info. I have a few Berger 140s laying around I could try so I’ll grab the N150 and see how it goes (not confident it will fix it but have to try lol)
 
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SlowMiss6.5 said:
Thanks for the info. I have a few Berger 140s laying around I could try so I’ll grab the N150 and see how it goes (not confident it will fix it but have to try lol)
Click to expand...

Lol, good luck.

I feel like this is a never ending project for you. Hopefully you find something that fixes your issues.
 
Have you tried different primers? Might be an easier fix
 
SlowMiss6.5 said:
It looks like on their website the N565 is better for the heavy bullets in the 6.5. I’m shooting the 147 ELDM. Would you still go for the N150 for the 147 bullet?
Click to expand...
To me, that would be too slow. I use N565 on the heavies on a 300WM. N550 or N555 would probably work better if you are looking into the 5 series N powders.
 
kthomas said:
Lol, good luck.

I feel like this is a never ending project for you. Hopefully you find something that fixes your issues.
Click to expand...
*knock on wood*

This N150 may be it! I used the exact same pieces of Peterson brass that shot an ES of 37 with SD of 11.4 with H4350 yesterday and it produced an ES of 24 with an SD of 7.3

But the real encouraging part is that the only shot (shot #4) was the only one that wasn’t within 2550-2558 and I did not load the bipod hardly at all on that one shot from some dumb reason which I think created the low velocity of 2534. All the rest of the 8 shots I applied similar preload onto the bipod and they were
1- 2558
2-2557
3-2556
Let cool for few min
4- 2534 (this was the one I didn’t preload the bipod
5- 2553
6- 2552
Let cool for few min
7-2550
8-2556
9- 2550

These shots were steady but not super steady and they all fell within 1” at 100 which for a lighter weight tikka that’s all I need!

Plan to retest tomorrow with some other Peterson brass (same lot) in the morning to verify ES/SD and temp stability (will be about 30 degrees difference
 
kthomas said:
Lol, good luck.

I feel like this is a never ending project for you. Hopefully you find something that fixes your issues.
Click to expand...
Sounds like you are mainly concerned with the numbers than with the loads accuracy of any load. Shoot some good and what you consider not so good as far as the numbers go at distance . 200 yds and further , and isn't that the name of the game, loading to hit what you aim at ?
 
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Old Corps 8541 said:
Sounds like you are mainly concerned with the numbers than with the loads accuracy of any load. Shoot some good and what you consider not so good as far as the numbers go at distance . 200 yds and further , and isn't that the name of the game, loading to hit what you aim at ?
Click to expand...

Yeah that’s the end goal but I wanted to know that when I’m shooting targets at say 800 I miss/hit because of me not because that last bullet was say 30-40 fps slower/faster. I understand with the Wiz calculator that going from ES of 40 to say 10 doesn’t significantly improve my hit probability but what it tells me is my reloads and rifle are getting along and not fighting each other with is valuable to know for me

As far as the group being just under 1” at 100, keep in mind this is a true 9 shot group from a hunting rifle that sees a lot of miles/elevation each year so it’s fairly light. If I cherry picked a 3 round group I bet it was .5” or better
 
Interesting.
I have been loading my Savage Stealth, rebarrelled in a 26" Shaw, with 43.1gr of StaBall 6.5 and over several hundred rounds I have averaged 2765 fps and under 10 SD, while getting consistent sub moa groups out to 1000 yds.
StaBall in the only powder that performs well in that rifle.
Obviously, each rifle is different and has preferences, but that is my experience.
Edit...I should add that these loads are with 147gr ELD-M bullets.
 
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